This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

Awesome article dreddk, thanks. I've never seen a better first article to familiarize someone to this theory.

It hits on an earlier suspected, and that is that our domesticated animals are also experiencing immune problems that their wild counterparts don't experience and that's a valuable lesson.

SA wrote:Many intestinal parasites are passed from person to person when microscopic amounts of human feces get on our fingers, or when we walk barefoot on contaminated soil. Sewage treatment and running water prevent parasites from passing from one person to the next, Parker explains. But it wasn’t always this way.

For clarification, although there are helminths which are directly infective from person to person, the helminths which had been most common in the now "developed" areas had eggs which had to spend several weeks in warm, moist soil before becoming infective and running water and the flush toilet eliminated that essential aspect of their life cycle.

In that light it's interesting to consider that maybe the "alarming" increased incidence of modern immune dysfunction in America followed the places, times and rates that America became electrified and installed flush toilets, and when you view a map of increasing MS incidence they do align.

It's always seemed interesting that because of that alignment, researchers have been inclined to consider MS incidence associated with the industrial revolution when maybe the industrial revolution provided the first electrified areas and a workforce that desired to and could afford to electrify their houses?

Thanks Lyon. The elegance of this theory very much appeals to me. When do you expect we will see some study results showing efficacy?

I do wonder if lack of parisites to tame immune systems plus low vitamin d=> overactive immune systems=> multiple sclerosis.

dreddk wrote:Thanks Lyon. The elegance of this theory very much appeals to me. When do you expect we will see some study results showing efficacy?

John unsuccessfully tried to get his phase I results published in 3 different journals although results on 5 or 6 people is only a situation of interest. Recently we've mostly talked about Spartan and Badger football so I don't know when or if he's finished recruiting for the phase II which is essential in determining when phase II is over and the results announced.

My long faithful computer died a couple of days ago and I'm in the process of trying to get comfortable with another one I had around but when I get a little time I'll PM you a link to an Argentinian study (of a couple years ago) and the editorial that John wrote about it.
Bob

Another thing I find interesting http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/88484.php is that parasites and the human placenta seem to use the same means to cloak their presence from the human immune system which in itself seems to have some scientific implications, one of which is "who copied who?" and at what point in human evolution did this begin?